Spain: Canary Islands destroys another 1.3 million kilos of bananas

Canary banana growers, which contribute the most to the agrarian economy in the region, have a problem, which is the impossibility of guaranteeing the sale of all the fruit they harvest, as the Iberian Peninsula practically remains their only market outside the islands.

For the second week in a row, the entity that brings together the six banana producer organizations on the islands, Asprocan, has had to ask permission from the Council of Agriculture for the market withdrawal of another 1.3 million kilos (15% of the total harvested, which has reached 8.7 million kilos this week).

With this, local banana growers have already withdrawn 2.3 million kilos in two weeks, as 1 million kilos (10% of the total volume) were withdrawn in the period from 20 to 26 November.

With these new withdrawal or destruction figures, the total volume withdrawn in 2017 amounts to around 14 million kilos, if not more, and comes close to the dangerous figure reached last year, when more than 15 million kilos were withdrawn. This was over 4% of the fruit marketed in the whole of 2015.

According to sources familiar with the Canary banana sector, there are currently nine million kilos too many in the market; a volume which would have to be withdrawn from the chambers in order for shipments from the islands to normalise, always as long as prices permitted it. The same sources revealed that there are a lot of bananas accumulated in ripening facilities and that sales have consequently ground to a halt.